Blogs from Grand Casablanca, Morocco, Africa - page 14

Alex-Cairo-CasablancaTom Griffithurl='/Videos/3009.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3009.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'A Moroccan bar The name is one of Africa's most evocative, up there with Timbuktu and Kampala and Ouagadougou - "Casablanca", home of Rick's cafe and where Bogie and Ingrid Bergman had their cinematic love affair. The reality is not quite as romantic - actually, Casablanca is just a big, boring city in Morocco, home to about 5 million people and the country's main airport. It's not even particularly old - the French built it pretty much from scratch a century or so ago. There is a small medina (an area in Moroccan towns of old houses, labrynthine alleyways, and busy souks), but the city is mainly French-style architecture, modern office buildings, and wide avenues, wit... read more

As much as I wish we could say we found Humphrey and Ingrid in Casablanca, I think we're some decades and a reality away. We did, however, find the third largest mosque in the world. This was actually our only reason for stopping in Casablanca since we had heard the city itself was a dirtier and less charming Rabat. From our walks between the train stations and the mosque, with the exception of a few nicer streets, we found this statement to be pretty accurate. The Hassan II Mosque is quite stunning; King Hassan II, who was inspired by the verse from the Quran that states God's throne was built upon the water, developed the idea for this mosque right on the ocean and made the project his crowning achievement. The guided tour (the only ... read more

Mohammed wears djellabah and tarboosh but inside is as westerner as the group of pale English tourists I have joined by mistake in Algeciras. We are in Ceuta, Spanish enclave in Moroccan territory, and Mohammed is our guide. He’s tall and of slim constitution only corrected by the presence of a round shaped belly, clear sign of economic well-being. He’s got thick moustaches and wears a pair of old “smoke black” sunglasses that makes him look like a pimp from the seventies. I hate organized tours in general and I hate tour leaders in particular. As general norm, After the second or third embarrassing question, guides hate me too. Truly enough, Morocco didn’t enter in my plans of travel, but in Cadiz I had discovered that the ship heading to the Canary Islands only sails on ... read more

Historically, the start of my adventures have been fraught with surprises; some of my own undoing, and for others, the airline was at fault. This time, it was Delta (again!) I get to the airport with time to spare. At check-in, the kiosk displays that my flight is "unavailable" (kiosk-speak for cancelled, I later learn) and offers me another some 12 hours later, when I'm supposed to be well on my way to Dakar. At the direction of a ticket agent, I head to a "black phone" to let someone know the flight is unacceptable. Thankfully, my connecting flight from JFK to Dakar was an evening flight. Since I was at National before 10:00 in the morning for my cancelled flight, I had ample time to spend-- * waiting in line to use the "black phone", ... read more

We arrived in Casablanca on a sunny afternoon, Boxing Day, after travelling 30hrs through France, Spain and on a very rocky boat across the Strait of Gibraltar. The city is expansive and modern, with white sky scrapers and cars. Cars, cars, cars, two million cars all madly beeping their horns. Their are donkeys and slums too, and all of them have satellite dishes or antennas. For us, its all a blur, weak legged from sitting so long and choking on the pollution we drive around forever before finding Sidi and Antoine and dropping our bags at the hostel. Then, we dove right into the Medina, to the shops and smells. We ate sunflower seeds, cracking the shells in our teeth and spitting them out. We took the car out of the Medina for ice cream near ... read more